


A Million Little Pieces

by journeycat



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Protector of the Small - Tamora Pierce, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Children, F/M, Playful Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-10
Updated: 2015-09-10
Packaged: 2018-04-20 02:23:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4769954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/journeycat/pseuds/journeycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Piers puts his foot down on a ninth child, and has his reasons for doing so.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Million Little Pieces

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for Canon Week at Goldenlake in August of 2011.

“You know,” she said that night, fingering her pregnancy charm idly, “perhaps we can do away with this? Just one more time?”

Piers stared at her. “Are you mad? We already have a million.”

She glowered back at him, affronted. “We hardly have a million. Besides, Avinar is growing up—and I’m still young—”

“My dear, I think you have a complex. You’ve already proven you can bear healthy babies with your physique, and Avinar is not growing up—he just started sleeping through the night. I don’t want you risking having another so soon.”

“It’s not a complex,” Ilane insisted. She sat up, taking most of the covers with her. She was completely naked, but her long soft hair covered her breasts. It was shot through with white, which she hated, but Piers thought it suited her well. “You know, most men want a wife who pushes for more children.”

“I’m not most men,” he said calmly. “I love you, not your childbearing hips—or lack thereof.” She sniffed. “I wouldn’t have loved you any less had you not wanted any children at all. Inheritance never meant much to Mindelan.”

“It’s not about inheritance. It’s about me wanting a baby.”

“And it’s about the eight you already have,” Piers said patiently. “Don’t you think it’s time you stop with having them, and appreciate the ones you have?”

Ilane flared. “Are you implying I don’t care for my children?”

“Our children,” Piers corrected, as he often did with this wife who loved her babies a little too much, perhaps. “And not at all. I’m saying it’s a difficult burden for a woman to bear and raise so many children within a span of so few years. Baird said you should slow down after Demadina, if you recall.”

She glanced away, looking downcast like a maiden who yearned to have a baby, as though she did not have so many of her own now. But Piers could not tell her that he was terrified of having such a large family as it was—what if this time, she did not survive the pain and blood of labor? Would he suffer as Lord Martin did when he lost his wife, as Lord Alan did after Marinie’s terrible death?

And, and—didn’t she see, that with every son she bore, they would go off to put themselves in danger for the realm, whether it was as a knight or as a man of the King’s Own? The thought of losing Anders with his brave face, or Conal with his mischievous manners, bold Inness and little Avinar—it made him physically ill.

And daughters...! Oh, they were just as bad, for all that they did not fight battles in the field. Their war zone was in their husbands’ fiefs. What if they made a horrible mistake, and married sweet Patricine off to a cruel husband? Would Demadina and Adalia survive childbirth—that ridiculous feminine duty forced upon them by a masculine society? Would Oranie even survive childhood, as delicate and prone to illness as she was?

No, he could not do it once more. Already there were eight, and that was eight chances for his heart to break in a million little pieces. A ninth baby would be one more who could die and hurt him so. 

Perhaps Ilane was not the only one who loved those children too much.

“I suppose you’re right,” she said quietly. “I’m just being selfish, it seems.” But then her cloud passed and she glanced up at him with her mischievous smile. “But sex is hardly just for procreating, is it?”

Piers laughed aloud as she tackled him enthusiastically, and did not see her white hand that casually and shamelessly snapped the amulet off its cord.


End file.
